Big 12 Conference Men's Basketball Championship Saturday, March 10, 2018 Bill Self Malik Newman trying to get in and make plays for others and thankfully we were able to make shots tonight. Devonte' Graham MALIK NEWMAN: Coach always said when a team is Kansas Jayhawks pressuring us, go fast break. We just tried to play fast, and like Devonte' said, we were able to make shots. Kansas - 81, West Virginia - 70 So they had to fall back and they couldn't press us as much and we had to run our offense and it worked. THE MODERATOR: We are joined now by the champions of the Big 12 conference, the Kansas Q. Guys, typically that press they have wears other Jayhawks, Coach Self. Student-athletes are Devonte' teams down. This is the third time this year that Graham and Malik Newman. Coach, congratulations you guys have worn them down. What's that say on your victory today and the championship. about your conditioning and overall also what's it say about what you guys have got going on that BILL SELF: Well, thank you. It was obviously a you're able to do that? fabulous college basketball game. Both teams were DEVONTE' GRAHAM: I think for the most part we're really good offensively against two good defensive pretty good conditioning. We play four guards and the teams today. They got control of the game in the first weave thing that we do, we run that a lot and it's half and we made a run, and they got control of it in the actually a lot of running and gets us tired in practice. second half and we made a run. That was the So when we come to games we're not that tired. But difference. When they had a chance to probably playing back-to-back-to-back games, I knew their press distance themselves we made a lot of great plays to wouldn't be as good as it was on the first day. So as get right back in it and we played about flawless for the long as we were breaking it and getting through traps I most part down the stretch. knew we had a good chance of wearing them down. Really proud of our team. It's been kind of an up and MALIK NEWMAN: Basically Devonte' summed it up, down week for us, obviously for a couple of reasons. but I'm just thankful for our training staff. They did a But I thought the guys competed as well as they've great job of recovering, making sure that I had my legs competed all year long and played with as much all the time. So I mean, credit to Coach Self for the freedom as they have all year long, too. offense that we run to help us get in shape, but also credit to the training staff. Q. Devonte', was that the best half of basketball you played this season? Q. Devonte', could you comment on Silvio's DEVONTE' GRAHAM: Maybe. Once they went on a ascendency and his improvement and what it run in the the second half Coach called a timeout and means for your team to have him giving you quality we got locked back in and started making plays and minutes like that? just competing. It was just fun. Fun to be out there. DEVONTE' GRAHAM: It's huge. We knew we wouldn't have Udoka and Mitch and him would have to step up Q. Jevon Carter had said it's difficult for them to -- and he's coming into it and finding a rhythm and finding or it was difficult for them to press you like they did it at the right time. Everybody is happy for him, in the second half when you were making shots because he's been struggling. It's hard to come in in like you did. When did you sense that you were the middle of the season straight out of high school going to be able to handle whatever pressure they and get all this stuff thrown at you, all the plays, how threw at you and you were in the zone? fast we play. It's not like high school. So he did a great DEVONTE' GRAHAM: I don't know exactly when, but job of just sticking with it, coming into practice every we knew if we handled the press we would get some day, learning the plays and it's finally paying off. easy buckets and Konate did a good job of coming over and blocking shots. But we like to run. We like to Q. Devonte', I don't think I've every seen anybody shoot threes. Just ball movement, attacking the paint, remove an item of clothing during a play and then Rev #2 by #464 at 2018-03-11 02:21:00 GMT page 1 of 3 continue to score. I wonder, like, was that thing had three weeks ago from a depth standpoint. just annoying you? What was happening there? Hopefully that will be the case that we can have all DEVONTE' GRAHAM: No, actually he pulled it off, he three of those guys. was pulling my arm and it came down. So it was just like, my sleeve was right here. So I just threw it off and Q. Bill, I know you told us a couple nights ago you just kept playing. weren't going to sleep very well with some of the things that were going on. After the way Silvio THE MODERATOR: All right, guys. Congratulations played how much easier are you going to rest again on the victory. Good luck next week. Questions tonight? for Coach Self now? BILL SELF: Yeah, well, we'll rest. We may enjoy it a little bit before we rest. We needed something like this. Q. Bill, not necessarily about the game, but the But you can have a good performance and not win. league is set to get a bunch of teams in the You can still get good things from a game if you tournament, whether it's 7, 8 or 9. How important compete hard and certainly if this game had not gone is it for the league to do well in the tournament? our way I would have been really proud of our team Do you think that's been a point that people have because we were a better team today than we have made that knocked the league down in the past, been here of late. But, yeah, we'll rest better and I'm good regular season RPI, not as much in the happy for all our guys, without question. tournament? BILL SELF: I think it is important. I think our league I think this definitely validates what happened during has played out this year to probably be as tough as it's the regular season. Nobody can say that Kansas ever been and three of the last four years I think we caught a break or was lucky this year. We were able to were number one, thought of, in the RPI and usually validate winning by two games by winning this, but that should translate to more success in the tomorrow at noon it doesn't matter anymore. We will postseason. regroup and hopefully have fresh minds and fresh legs going forward. So I think it is important. I don't think our league is top heavy. I think our league is really middle heavy. I Q. Coach, playing alongside the Big 12 Player of mean, there's no poor teams and whenever you went the Year, Malik comes out and wins Most to your conference tournament with nine teams out of Outstanding Player of the tournament. Can you ten, 90% of the teams all can make a legitimate case comment on his performance and what that means for being an at-large team, I think that speaks volumes to this team? to the depth of it. BILL SELF: He was great. It should give him a ton of confidence. He really labored in Stillwater and has had But even with that being said, we gotta go play and good plays for us this year, but hasn't had a breakout play well because the teams in our league are really moment like this. So I'm really happy for him. He has good. But we're like all the other teams. There's not had a great attitude. He works hard. He's really as many dominant teams across America, so once you starting to understand exactly how he needs to play in get into the tournament they're going to be coin-flip order for him to have total confidence and freedom, games. We need to close those games out. and I think he's buying into that better than he has all year long. Q. Coach, could you talk about the importance or the advantage of having a team on the uptick at It's amazing to me when you care about the right things this point in the year? and you defend, and, you know, try to do things the BILL SELF: Well, you know, I'm not sure that we've way that you're supposed to do it to help your been on a serious uptick until today. We were bad last teammates you shoot the ball better. I think that was Saturday. We were better on Thursday. We were bad certainly the cause for all his success this weekend.